I could hear people cheering in the background, although it was impossible to determine if those cheers were coming from Albuquerque air traffic control, the network studio, or, to be honest, my apartment. Most likely all three.

Sanchez and Stein landed as heroes. The entire nation rejoiced. Really, I’m not being sarcastic. Millions of Americans had been awakened in the night and lived through almost two desperate hours together. We had shared a compelling, heart-wrenching emotionally draining experience. We had held our collective breath, many had prayed, and we had cried together at the joyous conclusion.

It was an extraordinary night; one of those I’ll-never-forget-where-I-was events. For most Americans, though, where they were was in bed, which is why that blip in baby births nine months later was not a surprise. No one could get back to sleep, so like Jenny and me, we all celebrated.

On that night, America came together. (Figuratively.)

For President Wrightman, this was the victory he needed. For a brief semi-shining moment all of the economic, political, and international challenges disappeared. The United Nations passed a resolution praising the two pilots for their courage. The president invited the flight crew “and any passengers who want to join us” to the White House. Every journalist wanted a piece of the story. I got lucky; a friend of my cousin Jon’s brother-in-law worked in Albuquerque air traffic control and spoke with me about what it was like in the tower that night. I described it in a widely reposted piece:

The three air traffic controllers had an out-of-their-control airplane in their skies. They had less control over it than a drifting leaf in a storm. Within minutes they had cleared their screens of other aircraft for hundreds of miles while maintaining an unnatural calm. For the next 98 minutes they were the only communication between Northern Airlines flight …

The euphoria lasted three days, until all the feel-good stories had been published, all the crew and passengers had been interviewed. Then reality intruded: Cyberterrorists had successfully hacked into the computer system of a sophisticated passenger aircraft and taken control. It clearly was meant to be a demonstration of their capability; they could have crashed the aircraft at any point but for whatever reasons elected not to.

The world’s commercial and cargo aviation fleet was grounded. For a story I tried to figure out how many flights that included, but even Google didn’t provide that answer. I guesstimated 125,000 planes take off and land every day worldwide. It was a shaky figure, but I’m a good researcher, and if I couldn’t find a better number, no one could question it. Whatever that number, it was a scary day. Arguably it was the greatest terrorist success in history, impacting the most people, even though not a single person was killed. It reminded every American how completely vulnerable we are.

The fix was relatively simple. A second, entirely independent computer control system was added; experts compared it to loading a personal computer with both Windows and Foxfire. If a hacker compromised either one of them, the pilot could shut it down and activate the redundant system. Hacking into one system required tremendous skill and a great deal of luck; hacking into two independent systems on the same aircraft was calculated to be one in the multitrillions.